No sooner did the left-wing congresswoman from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, concede defeat in the Democratic primary Tuesday than her supporters and apologists started a new round of mischief making. A black woman who made opposition to Israel a hallmark of her tenure in Congress, Ms. McKinney ran a campaign funded by rich backers including pro-Arab contributors hostile to the Jewish State. Friends of Israel poured their contributions into the campaign coffers of Ms. McKinney’s opponent, Denise Majette, who is also black and who won the primary handily by hewing to a centrist course. She gained support not only from Democrats in her own district but also local Republicans, who forsook the chance to sort out the pri mary candidates in their own party to cross over and help knock Ms. McKinney out of the race. When Ms. McKinney was defeated, her father told a television reporter that the reason was “J-E-W-S.”

As if on cue, a new idea is being retailed in the African-American community — namely, that it’s somehow inappropriate for Jews to step up their involvement in races where candidates hostile to Israel are being challenged. One got a whiff of this earlier in the year, when Congressman Earl Hilliard was defeated in the Democratic primary at Alabama. The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat, was quoted in the New York Times yesterday as saying, “I definitely have some feelings about any outside group exerting this kind of influence in a race, and I’ve been receiving angry calls from black voters all day, saying they should rally against Jewish candidates.” The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, tells us there is now an effort under way by the Reverend Jesse Jackson and others to convene a summit meeting on the subject.

There’s an irony to this, as Mr. Foxman noted yesterday. “It was,” he pointed out, “outside support that played a major role in furthering the civil rights movement, in which Jews played an important role.” The Georgia primary, he noted, was not about a racial issue; both candidates were black. It was about a variety of things, including, no doubt, Ms. McKinney’s comments suggesting that President Bush somehow knew in advance about September 11. The work of a congressman affects the whole nation, which is why individuals from all over the country contribute to so many races. The mischief to watch for in the wake of the McKinney race is radical leftists citing Jewish activists as yet another reason to demand public financing of elections and an end to private participation in the financial backing of candidates.